I thought this may be a good little thing the other photographers of the CS community might be interested in undertaking.

I first picked up a camera in 2008 and very very rarely process my images in B&W. One of my photographic goals this year is to explore this technique of editing photos. I'm going to try and aim for at least one photo a month in B&W. Anyone else fancy a joining in?

I've processed this one this evening

Untouched RAW file -

Finished B&W edit -

Christopher

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Registered: 14th Oct 10
Location: Eastbourne
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4th Jan 14 at 19:09

Not a photographer or anything but do enjoy looking at other peoples work etc!

Firstly whats B&W?

What process was used between RAW picture and edited one

Cavey

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Registered: 11th Nov 02
Location: Derby
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4th Jan 14 at 20:32

Surely you can work out what B&W means?

I've done a few in BLACK and WHITE, but generally it's with some colour left in to highlight it, e.g.

the blue really doesn't sit right on that photo. The whites of the eye should be white and you should simply emphasise the Iris

Cavey

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Registered: 11th Nov 02
Location: Derby
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4th Jan 14 at 22:52

Tbh, I didn't change the colours from the camera, just duplicated layer, and cut round the eyes. I should of processed it more admittedly. But I liked it, so left it as is. Iirc she was still a little jaundice, so her whites were a bit off colour anyway

Sorry Christopher, I just went straight in with the photography lingo! A RAW file is a digital negative. It holds upto 5 times the amount of information that your average jpeg image holds. This means you can pull a lot more details out of black shadows and blown highlights. When I say I processes the image, I mean I adjusted it to my taste. You can fiddle with tonnes of different aspects like contrast, vibrancy, sharpness, colour correction and tone depth etc. The black and white conversion allows you to adjust each colour individually and can give the photo a bit more "pop". The dodge and burn technique basically means lightening (dodge) or darkening (burn) certain parts of the image to make it stand out, and create a more of a focal point in the image.

Nice photos guys How are you doing your colour pops? I've never ever tried it. I'm not a huge fan of it personally. A majority of the colour pop photos I see just remind me of the Canvas photos you see in B&M hombargains

whitter45

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Registered: 15th Nov 02
Location: Norton
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9th Jan 14 at 21:57

Selective colour tool in cs6 Rob. I agree sometimes they work sometimes they don't

Cavey

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Registered: 11th Nov 02
Location: Derby
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9th Jan 14 at 22:27

With mine was duplicate layer, top layer black and white, then cut out the bits you want in colour

Thought I'd get this going again! I've been trying out the DxO optics pro over the past month and I have been hugely impressed with it. It blows Lightroom out of the water for RAW file adjustment. I highly recommend any serious photography fans who shoot RAW to download the 30 day free trial and have a play. It's brilliant and the high iso noise reduction feature is out of this world.

Anyway, part of the DxO software includes a module called Film Pack. It essentially processes your image using different presets which replicate all sorts of camera films and photo papers. Another plus point for DxO. Here are some images I've processes with it using a b&w setup